“He Is A Joke Now”: Hannah Gadsby Has Destroyed Louis C.K. And What’s Left Of His Reputation

“He’s saying the same kinds of things,” says Hannah Gadsby, about disgraced standup comedian Louis C.K. “The material hasn’t changed. He’s just angry and bitter.”

Yikes.

Hannah Gadsby is currently touring her new show Douglas, the follow-up to the award winning Nanette, in the United States. In Douglas, she makes a joke about Louis C.K., saying that she “quit comedy the same way Louis C.K. said he was sorry.”

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, the Australian comedian expands on her thoughts about Louis C.K., who admitted to multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, including several incidents in which he masturbated in front of women without their consent.

After a very brief pause for contrition, where he announced that he would “step back and take a long time to listen”, he quickly returned to the stage.

“He is a joke now,” says Hannah Gadsby in her interview. “And I think it’s important to keep making that joke. This is dangerous to talk about, but I’ll give it a go.”

She continues.

“What the issue is, for a long time Louis C.K.’s comedy platform was that he was this hopeless guy bumbling through the world. And at some stage, he was no longer that, but that was still his voice. And I think he still believes that. He has not reassessed his position of power, and that is why he was able to abuse it. It’s difficult to see a shift in your own power and privilege. It’s not something we’re trained to do. He still honestly thinks he’s the victim in all of this.”

If you want to see all the queer ladies in Seattle in one place, go to a Hannah Gadsby show. It was like we were komodo dragons, and she was the big unattended box of dead mice.

— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) June 9, 2019

Later, describing how she felt about Lous C.K.’s comedy in general, she admitted to always struggling with his work.

“.. I’m a visual thinker. And there’s just so much semen. So I literally couldn’t see the humour in this waterfall of body fluids. That’s my issue. I never blamed him for that. But then I think, ‘Gosh. That’s on his mind a lot too.’ The guy clearly had an issue. And that’s sad for him. So why are we trusting a man who has a compulsion like that where it diminishes the humanity of people around him? Why do we care what he thinks about the human condition? He needs to worry about his own condition a bit. Just sit quietly.”

Gadsby also noted that she isn’t a fan of censorship — and that “Censorship is useless because it leaves a gap where we learned a lesson.”

“If you’re used to controlling a narrative and then you’re witnessing it go to a different place, you will not let go. He’s a trapped man. He’s doing his comedy from a position of defensiveness.”

Read the whole article on the LA Times here.

Douglas is currently touring, and will eventually be on Netflix.

Here’s the Australian dates: